Category: Photography

I’ve been doing test runs with different personas over the last 48-years, looking for aspects of identity I might use. I’ve built internal stories and altered my appearance to help me adapt to new places and people. Despite all the changing around, though, I’ve never wondered WHO I am. Every one of the personas, even those appearing only in a photograph, has been an expression of me. As the late Oliver Sachs said, “We have, each of us, a life-story, an inner narrative — whose continuity, whose sense, is our lives. It might be said that each of us constructs and lives, a “narrative,” and that this narrative is us, our identities.”Continue reading “About Face”→

I’m not wild about Monet’s art. But I am wild about what he had to say about seeing, producing, creating. He, an art master of great renown, expressed so perfectly that with which I have been unsuccessfully flailing about. Namely, the importance of SEEING. Not just looking at things, not just naming them and moving on, but slowing down, actually removing yourself from thinking, and seeing what you are looking at. Continue reading “Forget the Name of What You Are Seeing”→

Since 1970, and the first celebration of our planet, Earth Day has been an important day for me. I set aside time that day to meditate on my relationship with the Earth. And I inevitably feel enormous gratitude for being sustained by this planet in body, mind and soul. Not just sustained, however, but inspired to create, to respect and protect the environment and all life. Continue reading “Prayers for the Earth”→

I was walking in the woods this morning, on the hunt for what a friend had excitedly called a “bloom of lily-like plants with spotted leaves and yellow flowers.” I went with the intention of recording an image, but I got a lot more out of the experience than just a photograph. Continue reading “Seeing Through the Lens”→

(From my 2016 Holiday Letter…)
2016 was not a good year. It was not kind to the health and well-being of some of those near and very dear to me. Then, on November 8th, America–not the America I thought I knew–elected a mercurial, bullying, racist lunatic, and I—along with many other like-minded citizens—fell into a trough of helplessness, depression, confusion and powerlessness.Continue reading “Finding Light in Times of Darkness”→

This story starts when I was very young, before 10 years old. I’m in a darkroom and there is a red light above. My father is holding a small black box that smells very strongly of chemicals and he is showing me how to turn the dial on the top of the box two or three rotations every few minutes or so. Continue reading “Opening a Lens on Myself”→

About

A woman with a deep curiosity about everything on earth--really, everything: how paper is made, what life is like for honeybees inside their hive, where wind comes from, how people choose what they do in their lifetimes--everything. Creativity is central to who I am: photography, writing, cooking, pottery, soap-making and, yes--knitting (but weird knitting, not "your mother's knitting.") So it makes sense that I should try to understand the magic of creativity and why it confers such gifts to those who make things...

Craftiest Project of the Month: Crochet up this Plarn Lunch Tote and help rid the world of a ton of plastic grocery bags, turning them into something useful. Pattern from Vickie Howell’s terrific blog.

Tasty + Good Recipes: Skinnytaste.com’s Lentil Salad. Super easy to make, loaded with 7 grams of protein per serving, meat and gluten free, and DELICIOUS—who could ask for anything more?